Christmas 2009

I know this is a super late post and most people have already changed the subject.. but I have been so out of it lately! The only reason why u guys are getting this blogpost today and not on the weekend is because I am home sick! Since Xmas day it has been non stop, boxing day, engagement, bank holiday etc.. My body just hasn't handled it very well and I have been home in bed with the flu for the last 2 days. I am feeling perkier today.. as for yesterday I remember waking up once.. and that was to eat take more medicine and go back to sleep.

Anyhoo! How was everyones xmas? did you guys eat lots and have lots of fun? I don't really celebrate christmas from the religious aspect of the festive season, but I have celebrated christmas as the time of year where I am with family eating a roast dinner and exchanging gifts. This year was more lowkey and was me my mum, my dad my brother and my fiance. We watched xmas tv and exchanged gifts then had a yummy roast! We tend to buy lots of little bits on christmas so I am going to show you some of my favouirtes.

my brother got me this amazing book on Vivienne Westwood's fashion through the years. I am a huge Westwood fan and I love receiving books because I very rarely buy myself books! I thought it was really sweet that he had bought me a Vivienne Westwood handkerchief to accompany the book! My brother is the total opposite of me.. While I admit that I love all things superficial he loves wandering through the mysteries of London's finest charity shops. Its odd because we get on so well despite being very different he is so intelligent it scares me, (I'm meant to be the older more wise one, but often find myself taking his advice!)

My mum and dad got me lots of little bits for my room, for me.. but the most amazing gift they got me was, again ANOTHER book! It is the book by Illamasqua's Alex Box, I fell in love with this when the MUA from Illamasqua showed me this at the counter. The imagery and make up artistry is so powerful it's amazing! This book deserves its own post but thought I would put up a few pics for those who haven't had a chance to look at this book. It is such a beautiful book to look at and advise you guys to have a look!!!

I've left this present till last to talk about and that partly because I am still in shock that I have these. My fiance..because thats what he is now! never fails to amaze me.. and I can't believe I opened these on christmas day! For those who follow me on twitter will know what I am already talking about.. for those that don't I am going to let the pictures do the talking..

Meet my 'TITI 120's'

How was everyones xmas? Did Santa bring you what you wanted?!

Just wishing you a..

Happy christmas to all of my lovely followers and new readers.. Hope you are all having a fabulous festive time.. I have lots to post so will probably use this relaxing day to catch up with you all later on. I am just about to have a yummy xmas lunch! ENJOY..

Rococo Nail Apparel

At Space Nk we have recently began to stock this brand of nail polish called 'Rococo Nail Apparel'. I have to say if you haven't checked out this brand it's a must! They have such an AMAZING collection of colours from Metalic silvers to Gold leaf, they really do have some hott ones! So last night I decided to take home the testers to try out this brand, I mean they are lovely to look at and come in AMAZING packaging (A box with brocade pattern on it) but I don't really know much about how they come out! I picked two colours because I couldn't decide but ended up going wit a creamy milky colour (I know I know..just can't stay away!). This colour reminds me of 'Mod about you' because it comes out as bright, however instead of it having pink/lilac tones this one has a peachy/beige tone. I love the contrast with my skin colour!

(dont laugh at how ugly my hands look in photos! They arent that bad in the real!!)

I started off with the superbase which was really good and then applied two coats of the nail varnish and one coat of the gloss on top! FORGET the nail varnish I have to say how impressed I am with the TOP COAT!! wow.. usually I hate painting my nails unless I know I am going to sit still for the following two hours! I always end up getting bed print on them or you know what I mean. The top coat dried s quickly and I went to bed soon after to awake in the morning with NO BED NAILS! yay.. they were glossy and looked professionally manicured! The consistency of the nail varnish is good, you may not necessarily need to coats its just the way I like it though. One thing I have to criticise but bare in mind I have been at work ALL day! Prepping for sale, moving boxes, wrapping gifts etc. My nails have chipped slightly and that makes me a bit skeptical as to how long these professionally looking nails may last. Nonetheless I do think its worth a try and because the colours are so gorgeous it makes it hard to resist. I chose a pretty boring colour in comparison to some of the amazing ones they have.

They are priced at £11.50 so are similar prices to OPI. The colour I painted my nails was 'C-CUP'.

Heres the gold leaf one I was talking about!

How amazing!

Lots of Love

Straight hair and a bite of MouldyFRUIT!

Yesterday I decided I would brave the weather and straighten my hair! Lately I have been sooo LAZY it is always the easier option to keep it curly.. because its natural therefore if I get caught in the rain my hair won't turn into a mane because it already is! haha.. All the girls at work really liked my hair straight and to be honest it felt really nice.. I feel that because I haven't had it straight for a while it was a real change. It has been good for me though as it has allowed me to use less heat on my hair which is definitely helping it grow! YAY finally..

My makeup yesterday was quick and easy.. I used Laura Mercier e/s in bronze copper, with a bit of MAC's black tied in the outer corners and lightly through the crease, lined with MAC'S 'Blacktrack' fluidline. For the face I used my studio fix foundation as always, my prep and prime translucent powder. For the cheeks I used MAC's blush creme in 'Posey' with a little a bit of NARS 'Torrid' over the top. For the lips, I used MAC'S lipstick in 'Politely Pink' and 'Snob' mixed in with some random Laura mercier gloss! Honestly this takes me about 10 mins to do and thats why it is my quick look!

Yesterday I wore my apple bitten chain and thought WOW how could.. a little bit of

Mouldyfruit!

What are you guys doing with your hair? Short? Long? Straight? Curly? Inbetween?

A NARS A WEEK

So since I've started at Space, I have TRIED to limit myself to buying a product a week. Over the last 3 weeks I have bought Lovejoy, Torrid and Red square. Then today one of the national make up artists from NARS was in store and well firstly she gave me the biggest compliment I have EVER recieved although I don't believe it at all! She said I remind her of Kim Kardashian.. LOL seriously WHAT THE F! I friggin wish!! She seems to think I have similar features! ANYHOO by this point I was getting sucked into everything she was suggesting lol! At the end of it I only bought two things but seriously was really hard to resist!

OK so as you know its the engagement party this sunday and at first I was going to get one of the make up artists at work to do it. However, I am really fussy when it comes to my makeup and I know what suits me and how I like it done, therefore I figured I should just do it myself, I think I do it well enough! So I was explaining my dress to the MUA and she suggested the eyeshadow duo in Habenera, one side is a really pigmneted silver that isn't too sparkly! The other half is a plumish purple with some really smokey sparkle in it! All she had to do was put it on my hand and I feel in love.. Its so mysterious and I love that! I am going to experiment and do a few looks for you guys to help me decide how to do my make up on the big day!

I asked her what blush she suggested would compliment my smokey eyes and she thinks that my torrid would work a treat and as for lips, she recomended the gloss 'Turkish Delight' Kim Kardashians fave! I have been meaning to buy this for a while, so after she made the Kim K comment on me I was totally sold on the lipgloss! haha. I love how babypink this gloss is.. Yumm!

I feel so much better now that I have confessed my sins! haha :)

£15.00

£15

Me and my other half.. have random days were we do random things.. lol.. for example yesterday, as we were both leaving for work we decided that we had to buy something for one another that was no more that £15. I like silly things like this just to see how imaginative we can be.. and well on this ocassion it appears that we both lack in creativity and will power! haha..

What I bought him

This shouldn't have been included and well it was something I needed to buy him.. I bought him a band ring from Tiffanys. If only items in there were £15 hey.. ;). The band I chose was a woven sterling silver ring. The reason I chose it was partly because I was being lazy and desperately needed to find him something before the 27th and partly because I really liked it. Now I was told by the sales assistant that the wider ring was for men and well the one I had selected was more for women but sometimes purchased for men. This didn't put me off because well when you like something.. you like it! I had bought my beau a ring from tiffanys a few years ago which I got engraved and he lost! I didn't want to chose another boring, plain band and well I wasn't ready to part with thousands because lets face it, guys don't tend to have engagement rings!? It also made me well aware as to how little choice there is within mens jewellry. Anyhoo, here is the ring. I was really happy when he said he loved it cuz trust me he's a fussy one! lol.. well not really fussy but more particular in his likes. It looks really lovely on his hand.

What he bought me

WOW I have been buying from MAC for years and never recieved a special edition gift bag like this, I love it! Its so pretty :) He also went over budget! I have not bought anything from the holiday collections this year because I feel they are becoming slighlty repetitive. Saying that for the last four years I have always had at least one of the eyeshadow palettes and well my hubby got me the 'Devil may dare, warm eye shaddow collection! I loveeee the selection of colours in this palette, they are quite earthy so you have a great choice from greens to golds to browns to plums. These are the colours I tend to wear on a daily basis so I cannot wait to put them to good use! I am glad that my fiance is quite attentive and knows what I like in most things, especially make up, he therefore made some good choices :)

Another great choice he selected was a really bright red/fuscia colour lipstick from the holiday collection called 'Utter Fun' and seriously what a great name to describe this lippy because that is what it screams out to me.. Its a lustre so has more of a sheer tone with a slight shimmer. Its such a christmasy colour and I have to say the festive season has seen me rocking my reds. The last thing he got me, but I am taking back is one of the seasonal brush sets, I could have kept it but it seemed pointless because I have all the brushes in the seasonal sets from last year!

To be honest I didn't think we were seriously going to buy each other something so these goodies were a real suprise to me, as was his ring to him. Do you guys and your boyfriends/friends do things like this? I remember growing up my cousin used to take me and my bro out all the time to shopping centres, giving us a certain amount of money to spend.. we loved it, it was like xmas had come early lol!

Blushcremes

A little while back I made my first blushcreme purchases and bought MAC's 'Posey' and Illamasqua 'Dixie', at first I was unsure as to how I would get on with them, I have to say I really enjoy using creme blushers.. I love the glowy look they give me and the good pay off! So as I was wondering in MAC as you do, I decided NOT to buy any lippys as I have 3 unused still in the boxed..how naughty! Firstly I hate the MAC in Westfield, actually have to queue to get in.. seriously its ridiculous! I mean hello pro card holder! Anyways despite the drama I felt I had to pick up a few bits!

The blushcreme I chose, yes I managed to limit myself to one was 'Ladyblush' Although the colour appears to be very similar to Posey, Ladyblush is more pink and well when I like something I tend to buy all colours similar! So hey ho.. this will be getting a lot of love from me :)! By the way in the pics.. On my posey blush thats not shimmer/glitter lol although it looks that way its the marks from my stippling brush! Ladyblush is so pretty!

I also finally bought the 224 blending brush, this brush is awesome but almost reminds me of a flufffy paintbrush haha! I have seen some makeup gurus use this brush for concealer and it buffs in really well, so I think I might attempt to use it like that. Its like how at first I was unsure about using my 109 for foundation but NOW I swear by it and I am sure it will be the same for the 224. I like the way fluffier brushes really blend in foundation and concealer and therefore it appears to be less cakey. What do you guys find?

The last thing I picked up which doesn't really deserve a mention, but just because of its greatness it does.. was Duo glue.. I haven't worn lashes in a while and this may be why.. my dark duo had dried up as I lost the lid :( boo.. But now I have duo back in my life! :) Hallelujah

SHOES SHOES SHOES

I haven't been shopping in ages.. well at the time.. I hadn't. I'd gone out with the girls from work for our XMAS party and one of the girls was wearing the most amazing shoes.. laced up, platform type.. they were soooo HARAJUKU! I fell in LOVE..She told me that they were from office, I was in MAJOR shock at this point! SO that evening as soon as i got back.. I went on to office's site and they had them!!! Although hers were black and the only ones they had were TAN.. No doubt they still had to be bought..

THEN came the shock of my life.. when I discovered they were £15.00.. OMG how ridiculously cheap is that! They were initially £80 and I would so pay that for them.. so I was very pleased with myself! They arrived on Thursday and I am already trying to purchase a whole wardrobe around them! The fiance..(feels weird calling him that!) doesn't like them.. but who cares I love them.. they remind me of something Gwen Stefani would wear!?

What do you guys think?

Red Square.

Oh my.. I never knew I could love a lip pencil this much! This is the velvet matte lip pencil by NARS in the colour RED SQUARE. I absolutley love this product the consistency of the pencil is quite creamy..(considering) and very smooth one applied! It gives you the ultimate matte lip, strong in colour! This colour is so gorgeous because has more orange tones than red, it reminds me of MAC's 'So Chaud' lippy. When I wore this I got asked by three people what I was wearing, when I applied it on them they were suprised that t is well suited colour to all skin tones. As it's a pencil, you have the option of making the lip as subtle or as strong as you like!

After a whole day of wearing this I have to say I was quite shocked that the colour really lasted! If you guys are looking for a Matte lip, you must try these pencils. Other colours I'm loving in these are, 'Sex Machine' and 'Dragon girl'. Sex machine is a nudey pink colour sort of like MAC's 'Pink Plaid', whereas Dragon Girl is a deep red, with a slight pinky tone that reminds me of MAC's 'Ruby Woo'. These pencils come in a selection of stunning colours and I know I will be buying more of these! They are £16.50, which is quite dear.. But I think it's worth it!

I hate how I look in this pic.. and the quality is so lame! this was taken a few days ago before I got my lead!

Lovejoy - NARS

My discount card came this week and well this was my first purchase I made with it! Nars, Lovejoy blusher. I am not a big fan of Nars blusher, well I haven't been. The reason being because I don't like too much sparkle because I think too much of it leaves me looking ashy! ANYHOO.. I am back on the sparkle.. I mean its xmas and now that I am staring at NARS everyday I want ALL OF IT! I could have bought about 6 blushers at one go.. Orgasm, Super Orgasm, Deep Throat, Taj Mahal, Taos, Lovejoy.. (to name a few) However.. I thought I would space out my purchases a little haha! I settled for Lovejoy and I cannot wait to use it. It's a really warm shimmery rosed bronze.. I know that sounds like a mess of words but in reality its gorgeous.. I promise as soon as my camera lead is with me I will take more pics using the products I talk about!

Whats your fave NARS blush? Do you like lots of shimmer? I go through phases!

Lots loveJOY

Zara

xxx

Jemma Kidd- Dewy Glow

On Thursday at work I was given a Jemma Kidd product. This is my first JK item, It is a dewey glow radiance creme powder. It is a gorgeous pearl colour, reminds me of the Mac MSF champagne. It retails at £16.64 and can be used under or over foundation, or simply on its own. It just gives the skin a lift and healthy sheen. I haven't tried it yet but am looking forward to doing so. I have to say I do love the packaging for this, Item I love the Matte Black with Pink writing, its the simplicity that I like and also the fact that the compact is very slim.

Again I apologise for the quality of pics.. I still don't have my camera lead and well i'm making do with my webcam. I hate posts without pics..!

What do you guys think of Jemma Kidd? Any of you have any recommendations?

I call it 'Twizzled'

I am sitting here watching X factor and checking out cheryls new do! So she finally ditched the extensions, I prefered her long lengthy looks.. altho she is rocking it. I don't think I would ever have permananet extensions again because I didnt like not being able to put my hands through my own hair.. Know it sounds silly.. but true! I like how shes sporting this twizzled look similar to Posh's new do.

I think posh looks FIERCE in this pic.. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Loub's..

anyways this was a random post.. but just because I wanted to know what you thought of cheryls new hair seeing how popular her old one was! She's still gorgeous no doubt..! Will have to try this twizzled look..! :) I have two more posts I want to do before I go to bed..as I have been lazy all day!

Lubatti

History of Madame Lubatti

Madame Lubatti was a remarkable lady, a skincare specialist who hand-mixed her own lotions and potions in her stylish London apartment for society ladies, English royalty and celebrities from the 1920s onwards. She was a lady ahead of her time and saw anyone who was anyone in London during this period. Vivien Leigh and Princess Marina (mother of Princess Alexandra) were among her impressive client list.

She was a terribly striking lady, very glamorous and beautiful. A homeopath by trade, she travelled to the Far East and settled in Hong Kong for sometime while perfecting her skills - she often talked about her wonderful house out there. However, she soon discovered her first love was in fact, skincare and over the ensuing years, her focus shifted solely to skincare.

Eileen Malone went to see Madame Lubatti as a client; Madame took one look at Eileen Malone’s hands and hired her on the spot and thus a piece of history was made. Eileen worked directly with Madame Lubatti and trained under her guidance until Madame sadly passed away in the early 1970s.

Madame Lubatti not only developed and hand-mixed creams and lotions for her clients, but used these creams during her facial massage treatments, an art that was passed down to Eileen Malone and then to Tracey Malone. Madame Lubatti’s legacy now lives on through the new Lubatti Collection. Using the exclusive and secret recipes inspired and developed by Madame Lubatti, the Collection is a true representation of the original products, and a celebration of Madame Lubatti and everything she stood for.

Eileen Malone is the mother of Jo Malone and sister Tracey Malone. As most people know Jo Malone is an established brand with some amazing products. However the launch of Lubatti is an exciting because the products are so beautiful. This is a snippet of what Tracey Malone has to say.

Me and Lubatti

There is a selection of face and body products, I got to chose two items for free :).. I was so excited! After testing them all and being briefed on their ingredients, I chose the Honey and Almond day moisturiser. I really liked this product when I tested it because I could feel how it refreshed my skin and left it feeling really hydrated. The smell is divine and not too overpowering which is important for a face cream I think the price of this cream is really reasonable, especially for the texture and finish of this day cream; For 50ml its priced at around £30. The reason I chose the honey almond is because it works best for dry and dehydrated skin and I feel that as the weather gets colder my face is becoming dryer, this is described as the perfect 'Pick me up!' and I can't wait to see if it does! This cream also provides a great base for makeup. The packaging (box) is gorgeous as you open if there is such lovely art work inside the box, I don't think I will be able to throw this packaging away.. its too pretty!

The other day cream that Lubatti do is and Orange and Jojoba oil daily moisturiser, this smelt AMAZING, I would have got it if it was more specifically for dryer skin. It is a lighter moisturiser but is still extremley refreshing and nourishing. This product is well suited to all skin types.

The second item I chose was the Lubatti sparkling eye gel, this is their best seller and OMG. It was wonderful. I applied it half way through the day on makeup just to get an idea and wow, it really lifted my face and my eyes felt less tired. It is infused with the powerful antioxidant green tea extract and Aloe Vera so really nourishes and brightens the area surrounding the eyes. I am definetley going to try this and get back to you guys with results. This eye gel is around £28 for a 15ml.

From what I tested the products are lovely, the texture of the creams is smooth and they all leave the skin feeling hydrated. Other items I liked from the range was the vitamin E hand cream. This smelt beautiful and contains calendula which reduces redness and dryness in areas on the hands such as the knuckles. I put it on and instantly felt the difference by the time I finished work my hands still look moisturised and felt softer, despite being out in the cold. The hand cream is really modestly priced at £16 for what it does I would have expected it to be dearer.

Here are a few of the pics from the catalogue! (PS.. sorry for the pooor quality of pics I am using my macbook's Photobooth as I am still without a camera lead I actually hate posting ugly/bad quality pic :'( *cries*)

So guys there you have it a little bit into the story of Lubatti.. watch out I have a feeling this brand is going to make it big! The products are currently based ONLY in Space NK stores. You can however purchase through their website or alternatley through space NK's website. If you pass by a Space NK, go in and have a test.. I would love to know what you guys think because right now I'm pretty impressed :)..

www.lubatti.co.uk

www.spacenk.co.uk

Lots of Love guys

Zara

Cyber kisses

xxx